Liviania’s review of The Fire King (Dirk & Steele, Book 10) by Marjorie M. Liu
Paranormal romance released by Leisure Books 28 July 09

Marjorie M. Liu has written a large number of books in the Dirk & Steele series.  The Fire King is my second, and just as satisfying as the first one I read.  Liu is very good at explaining the essentials and moving on so that you do not feel lost despite the fact she’s written so much in this world.  The Fire King does get surprisingly dark for a romance, as there is discussion of genocide.

I’ve got a bit of a chip on my shoulder about rape in books, particularly UF.  It’s becoming a generic angsty moment, and only a few authors handle the psychological ramifications well.  (For the majority, this TV Tropes article is apt.)  That’s part of why I found Soria interesting.  She’s got a tragic past that left her with only one arm.  Liu went for something other than the obvious, which I appreciate.  Soria did seem a little too tough to be real at points, but I still liked her because Liu was doing something different.  Soria also has a cool power: she can understand any language.

It comes in handy when the Dirk & Steele agency comes into contact with Karr, a man who only speaks a long dead language.  It turns out he’s a Chimera, created by two different types of shape-shifters having a child.  The normal shape-shifters have attempted to hunt the Chimeras to extinction and to make interspecies romance taboo.  It would be standard to have the Chimeras be deeply wronged by their enemies.  Instead, Liu allows them to have a point.  The Chimeras do eventually go insane and then go on a killing rampage.  It doesn’t mean that the Chimeras deserve to die, but it does make the situation somewhat more complex.

Soria and Karr are also backed by an interesting cast.  It makes me wonder who has shown up in past novels and who will show up in future ones.  Some, like the grad student doing field work, I suspect are one-offs.  Others, like Soria’s Tarantino-esque bodyguards, I hope are or will be in other books.  As for the plot, it was okay.  The adventure parts, with Soria and Karr running from the shape-shifters, were exciting.  Why Karr was still alive after 3000 years and all was pretty much an info dump.  Liu didn’t reinvent the wheel with the plot, but it was fun enough.

I enjoyed The Fire King, although my previous exposure to Dirk & Steel (The Wild Road) was better.  Liu’s writing itself is entertaining.  Her prose flows well and describes things rather nicely.  Soria and Karr weren’t the most empathetic leads, but I still liked them since they were something different.  (Okay, Soria more than Karr.  A hero who will probably go crazy has been done in UF and paranormal romance.)  Add in a globe-trotting setting (Mongolia), humorous and ambiguously villainous secondary characters, and chase scenes and you’ve got a summer blockbuster.

In other words, Liu gave me something that I could think about but didn’t really demand it and kept me happy for an hour or two.  Though The Fire King probably won’t top my list of the year’s paranormals, I think it’s a worthwhile read and not just one of the carbon copies that it’s getting harder and harder to avoid.

Grade: B

Summary:
Long ago, shape-shifters were plentiful, soaring through the sky as crows, racing across African veldts as cheetahs, raging furious as dragons atop the Himalayas. Like gods, they reigned supreme. But even gods have laws, and those laws, when broken, destroy.

Zoufalství. Epätoivo. Asa. Three words in three very different languages, and yet Soria understands. Like all members of Dirk & Steele, she has a gift, and hers is communication. When she is chosen to learn the dead language of a shape-shifter resurrected after thousands of years of icy sleep, she discovers a warrior consumed with fury.

Strong as a lion, quick as a serpent–Karr is his name, and in his day he was king. But he is a son of strife, a creature of tragedy. As fire consumed all he loved, so death was to be his atonement. Now, against his will, he has awoken. Zoufalství. Epätoivo. Asa. In English, the word is despair. But Soria knows the words for love.
Read an excerpt here.

Sandy M’s review of The Wild Road (Dirk & Steele, Book 7)  by Marjorie M. Liu
Contemporary Paranormal Romance released by Leisure 29 Jul 08

This is only my second Marjorie Liu book, and so far I just love her heroes.  They’re, of course, of the paranormal world, a bit tortured, but they’re as sensitive as can be when it comes to their heroines.  They’re as snarling and growling protective of those mates as their kind can be, whatever that happens to be in the book you’re reading.  In this case, Lannes is a gargoyle, a creature that doesn’t bring sensitive and sexy to mind, but he is definitely that and more.

I like that Ms. Liu, in what I’ve read so far, gives us those different creatures to read about.  They’re big and strong because of what they are, but they are gentle and caring at the same time.  My first Liu hero was M’cal of Soul Song, the sixth book in this series, and I instantly fell in love.  The same has happened with Lannes, a gargoyle who keeps to himself most of the time, afraid of making connections with the wrong people, just as happened with him and his brothers in the past that led to their stone imprisonment for so many years.

But despite that, Lannes is true to his nature of protection and that leads him to a woman whom he makes a deep an searing connection with.  A woman who has no memory of who she is, where she comes from, or what she’s running from.  He knows he could be walking into a trap, but Lannes instead follows his instincts and decides to help this troubled but independent woman. At this point the story takes off and doesn’t slow down one bit until the very end.

Lethe, the name eventually given to our mystery lady by Lannes, is on the run from the moment she awakens in an unfamiliar hotel room, covered in blood and surrounded by dead men and fire.  With no memories, she doesn’t know if she’s a murderer, nor does she know who or what it is that has invaded her mind, making her do and say things against her will.

Not wanting to hurt Lannes with her unknown mysteries but needing his help and support, she begins to trust him as they unravel the puzzle of her life.  Another thing Liu does well is pulling you into her characters’ lives and making you feel what they feel.  The loneliness of these two characters is quite palpable.  Lethe’s isolation because of her lost memories draws Lannes to her because of the same feelings.  His due to his prior imprisonment and also his current prison in which he lives, disguised as a human at all times when among them or at home alone working with his books.  The more you get to know them, the more you know they belong together, they’re so right for each other – all the while hoping Lethe truly isn’t part of a larger trap of some kind that will break Lannes’ new-found trust.

There’s not much actual Dirk & Steele throughout this book.  Lannes keeps in touch with his brother Charlie and then Koni and Rictor show up to give a hand later in the book.  You don’t need to have read many of the previous books to understand what goes on in this one.  It stands on its own just fine.   There’s a couple of nice twists that crop up, one of which made sense to me because I had read Soul Song.  If there were others, they didn’t stand out, but I don’t think I missed anything if it did happen.  Everything fits together nicely in a roundabout way to solve Lethe’s mystery, all the clues coming together in just the right places.

I have got to get the other books in this series out of the TBR pile.  I’m curious to find out how it all started!

Grade: A

Read reviews of this and other books in the Dirk & Steele series by following its tag.

Summary:

Lannes is one of a dying race born to protect mankind. And while most see a beautiful man, this illusion is nothing but a prison. But when he finds a woman covered in blood, with no memory or past, he will be drawn into a mystery that makes him question all he knows.

Read an excerpt.

Other books in this series:

Shannon C.’s review of The Wild Road (Dirk & Steele, Book 8 ) by Marjorie M. Liu
Paranormal romance released by Leisure 29 Jul 08

I’ve jumped on certain romance bandwagons late, so it was only last year that I discovered the absolutely fantastic Dirk & Steele series by Marjorie M. Liu. What really impresses me about each of the books I’ve read in that series is that they seamlessly blend action and adventure, great world-building, and paranormal romance. I am always telling non-romance readers that they really need to read Ms. Liu’s books. So I was excited when I got the ARC for her latest, The Wild Road. Unfortunately, I’ve only read the first three Dirk & Steele novels up to this point, and I have a compulsion to read things in order, so it took me forever to get to this book. I finally decided I needed to skip ahead and read it, because Ms. Liu is a favorite author and the torture of having but not reading the book was killing me.

I’m glad to say that The Wild Road stands alone very well. I think some familiarity with the previous books in the series is helpful, but not necessarily required. I did stop early on and go back to read the short story, “A Dream of Stone and Shadow” from the Dark Dreamers anthology, which features Charlie, the brother of our hero Lannes, but that was more for my own curiosity than something I had to do in order to understand what was happening.

Ms. Liu does something interesting in this book. The heroine wakes up in a hotel room, covered with blood, holding a gun, with no memory of who she is. She spends the whole book not knowing who she is, and so consequently revealing her name would be a spoiler. I wasn’t sure that this would work particularly well at first, but even without a name, the heroine is probably my favorite Liu heroine to date. She is stubborn and resourceful, capable of taking care of herself but finding herself leaning on Lannes because more than she needs to be independent, she needs someone to be there for her and ease some of the oppressive loneliness that not having a past causes. I really did feel her loneliness, and I empathized with her as she gradually came to trust and then depend on Lannes.

As for Lannes… Well, I hate to be a squeeing fangirl here, but I loved him. Gentle giant archetypes are my favorites, and Lannes qualifies. He, too, is lonely, because he’s not human, and he can’t let anyone discover who he really is. He fears that if people knew what he was, they’d be repulsed, and so he’s kept himself apart from most people. But when he meets the heroine, his instinct is to protect her. It’s just in his nature, and even though she distrusts him at first, he’s so sweet about it. I just wanted to hug him throughout most of the book, and I absolutely believed in their HEA. Plus, Lannes has an awesome declaration of love speech at the very end that sent actual tears to my eyes and I never never cry at books.

I want you here,” he rasped. “I want you with me. I want to care for you and love you and have you with me every moment, every day, for as long as we live. I want to be the one to protect you. Not them, not anyone else, ever. And all those . . . handsome doctors and tennis players and men who know their wine can just . . . go away. Because I might not be as handsome as them, and I may not even be as human as them, but they will never believe in you the way I do, and they will never know you as I do, and they will never, never, come within a breath of loving you as much as I do. Never, [Heroine]. And if ever there should be a man who loves you more, then I bow to him. Because you deserve nothing less.

The plot is as compelling as ever. It’s definitely a road romance, which are always my favorite, but unlike other Dirk & Steele books, it’s set in the Midwest, which Ms. Liu evokes perfectly. As usual, the pacing is good, with enough quiet moments to round out the action scenes.

If I have a quibble, it’s that a lot of the climactic moments of these books feel the same. I don’t want to talk about specifics, but I will say that when the scene was foreshadowed, I knew exactly what was going to happen, and my predictions came true.

If you haven’t tried the Dirk & Steele books, you are definitely missing out on some great storytelling, some wonderful romance, and some fabulous characters. Recommended, especially to those looking for a little substance and solid world-building in their paranormals.

Grade: A-

Summary:

Lannes is one of a dying race born to protect mankind. And while most see a beautiful man, this illusion is nothing but a prison. But when he finds a woman covered in blood, with no memory or past, he will be drawn into a mystery that makes him question all he knows.

Read an excerpt here.

Read my review of The Red Heart of Jade (Book 3) here.

The other books in the series:

Shannon C.’s review of The Red Heart of Jade (Dirk and Steele, Book 3) by Marjorie M. Liu
Paranormal romance published by Love Spell 1 Jul 06

Whatever there is to say about Marjorie Liu’s books, “boring” is not an adjective that describes any of them. In the third installment in Ms. Liu’s Dirk & Steele series, the action starts from the first and doesn’t let up until the end.

This time Ms. Liu transports the reader to Taiwan, where Dirk & Steele agent Dean Campbell is investigating a series of grisly murders which all clearly have a paranormal bent. Soon the fires aren’t the only thing that Dean, a clairvoyant, is involved with. He meets up with Mirabelle Lee, a girl he grew up with and whom he always loved, and the two of them are caught up in a dangerous quest to find a missing piece of jade that may be the key to unleashing a deadly force upon the world.

What I like about Ms. Liu’s paranormals is that her world-building is consistent. The world she’s created is a pretty grim place, but it’s one of the few paranormal worlds that I feel meshes well with reality. And I always love the exotic settings that Ms. Liu employs. Here we have Taiwan, and it definitely feels like a place the author is familiar with.

The characters here were likable. I’ve liked Dean from his appearances in the previous two books, and was curious about how Ms. Liu would make this smart-ass, porn-loving complete guy into a romantic hero. Dean is all of those things, but he’s also never forgotten Miri, the woman he loves, and his determination to be with and protect Miri was absolutely sweet.

Unfortunately, Miri works less well for me as a heroine. I like her well enough, but she’s nowhere near as cool as Dean. I understood why the two of them would want to be with each other, and they definitely had chemistry, and I suspect that Miri would have been a kick-ass heroine in any other story. But she’s not, and so she easily gets overshadowed by the plot.

The plot itself moves along at a breakneck pace, though there are quiet, introspective moments along the way which allow for character development. Ms. Liu throws the reader directly into the middle of the action, and one must either keep up or get lost. thankfully, I kept up fine, though I did feel at times that all the intrigue between the characters was a bit much and things got too convoluted. The book ends on a satisfying note, with plenty more for Ms. Liu to do in this universe, and I’m anxious to see where she goes from here.

I wish the heroine had been a bit more memorable, and I could have dealt with a plot that was a bit less complex, but overall I very much enjoyed this entry into the series.

Grade: B

Summary:

Imagine a world where magic rubs elbows with science, where men and women with supernatural powers secretly risk their lives to help others. It is a world where one right turn can deliver a mystery that will change your life forever, a world of shape-shifters, immortal magicians, criminal underworlds run by powerful psychics — intrigue, mystery, and romance.

The saga continues in THE RED HEART OF JADE as Dean Campbell — clairvoyant, dangerous, and irreverent — finds himself hot on the trail of a murderer who is part of an ancient hunt for power, a hunt that has only one outcome: death or destruction. And at the heart of that hunt — both prize and mystery — is a women who died in Dean’s arms twenty years earlier: Mirabelle Lee, childhood sweetheart and the love of his life. Together, alive and reunited, Dean and Miri are forced to rely on each other — and the strength of their enduring love — as they race to unravel the mystery that threatens not only their lives, but the entire world.
You can read an excerpt here.